"They have fled," Raspu observed.

The others shrugged. "It will do them little good," Sheol replied. "We shall feed from them eventually."

From the town their eyes drifted over the similarly deserted barracks of the Lake Guard and, as the barracks held no interest for them, continued around the curve of the Lake to the great silvery stone Keep of Sigholt itself.

"Magic," Sheol said in a soft voice. "StarLaughter? Tell me what you know of this place."

StarLaughter adjusted her child a little more comfortably. "Sigholt is a place of great magic, although few know where it originates, nor even how to use it. When I lived in this land as wife to WolfStar, it was used part as a residence for the Talon and his family, and part as a staging post on the long flight from the Minaret Peaks to our summer palace in Talon Spike. The bridge guards Sigholt, and demands of all who enter if they are true, or not." "True to what?" Rox asked.

StarLaughter shrugged. "I do not know. And when I lived, and entered Sigholt, the bridge always let me past."

, 394 ,.

Barzula stared at her, then burst into loud laughter. "But you are hardly 'true', StarLaughter! Not to this land, nor to anything in this land!"

StarLaughter kept her eyes on the Keep. "I was then," she said softly.

"The question must be," Rox said, ignoring both Barzula's mirth and StarLaughter's reply, "is the Keep still magic? If so, why? Where does the magic emanate from? The Star Dance is dead, and surely this Keep has little connection to the great forests far to the east."

"And which we will shortly deal with, anyway," Sheol said, almost automatically. "But if the Keep is still enchanted, then howl"

She paused, then turned slightly so she could see all her companion Demons. "It makes me uncomfortable, for I would know why." Her voice changed, became harder. "As I would know how Drago survived the Star Gate."

The TimeKeepers had come to repent of their tardiness in disposing of Drago. They'd been distracted by those magicians, still not found, and by the time they'd thought to look for Drago, he'd disappeared.

There was silence as all contemplated Drago.

"When we find him," StarLaughter eventually said, "may 7 kill him?"

"Why is it you claim all the joy in revenge and killing?" Barzula asked, a petulant lilt in his voice. "First you want WolfStar, now Drago."

She shrugged slightly. "They both thought to use me."

"When we find Drago again," Sheol said, "he is mine He thought to trick me of his death once ... he will not do it again."

StarLaughter thought about protesting her right to Drago, then let it drop. Sheol seemed particularly strident over this issue, and besides, her revenge on WolfStar would be sweet enough by itself.

"As you wish," StarLaughter said, and Sheol smiled at her.

395.

Always as I wish, you irritating birdwoman.

"Now," Sheol said, and turned to Raspu, "will you work your magic on this Lake?"

Raspu bared his teeth, and hissed. He dropped the reins of his horse, and flexed his fingers into claws.

Watching, StarLaughter was struck by how skeletal they seemed.

With jerky movements, almost as if he was consumed by a desire so great his muscles had gone into involuntary spasm, Raspu threw a leg over his mount's wither, slid to the ground, and tore the clothing from his body.

He stood, naked and trembling, staring at the water.

StarLaughter suppressed a grimace. Raspu's body was so emaciated his bones almost protruded through his skin, and boils and pitted scars of long dried-out pustules littered his body from the base of his neck to the backs of his knees. As the Demon began to jerk and tremble, she ran her eyes down his body, noting every sore, the knotted, swollen joints of his limbs, and the withered, browned genitals shrunken up against his pubic bone.

StarLaughter had once considered Raspu a potential lover, but the sight of his naked body dissuaded her completely. Even Drago, as boring as he had been, at least had a body worth caressing.

If Raspu was aware of StarLaughter's caustic scrutiny, he gave no indication of it. His attention was completely on the waters of the Lake of Life before him. He stepped towards it, rocking violently on his feet as his muscles continued to spasm. His arms and hands jerked in a violent dance by his side, seeming completely beyond his control, and his mouth had dropped open to allow his swollen, reddened tongue to loll down almost as far as the bony bulge of his chin.

As a foot touched the waters, Raspu jerked even more violently, and tipped back his head, screaming and wailing. StarLaughter's eyes widened, and she glanced at the other 396 .

Demons. They watched with beatific expressions on their faces, as if it were the greatest wonder they had ever beheld.

StarLaughter looked back at Raspu. The Demon had walked into the Lake far enough that the waters lapped at his thighs. He still jerked and spasmed, so uncontrollably StarLaughter wondered how he kept upright, and a thin shriek now came from his mouth. Dribble streamed down to connect chin to chest.

StarLaughter's mouth twisted in repulsion . . .

And the waters of the Lake began to churn.

She stared. It was as if Raspu had infected the waters with some foul pestilence. The water bubbled, not as if it had been heated to a boil, but as if its surface was erupting in great pustules, sending spurts of fetid steam into the warm air.

"Look," Sheol said, and she pointed to a spot some twenty paces before Raspu.

Here the water had formed into a gigantic pustule some five paces across that, having burst, had then solidified as its effluence drained from it.. In the centre, a scarred and pockmarked walkway sloped downwards.

"Bring your child, Queen of Heaven," Sheol said, and she dismounted from her horse and walked past Raspu, still standing jerking and keening, and waded through the water towards the horrific opening.

StarLaughter found the journey downwards somewhat loathsome. It reinforced her growing belief that she must really find some more suitable companions. Perhaps when her son was fully grown . . .

She followed Sheol towards the opening, and was followed in turn by Mot, Barzula and Rox. As Rox pa.s.sed Raspu, the Demon of Pestilence abruptly halted both jerking and wailing, and fell into quiet step behind Rox.

The walkway sloped down at a gentle gradient, but StarLaughter found the going difficult.

397.

The entire surface was slicked with something thick and fetid, and StarLaughter did not want to dwell on what it might be.

"Sheol?" StarLaughter called to the Questor several paces before her. As she spoke, StarLaughter had to fight to repress a gag caused by a sudden mouthful of the putrid air. It smelled (tasted) as if a herd of diseased cattle had chosen to die in this place ... several weeks previously. "Yes, Queen of Heaven?"

"Will..." StarLaughter fought her stomach again, and barely managed to suppress her nausea. Now they had descended well below the level of the water, they were surrounded by close, suppurating walls of sickly pink. It was almost as if they walked through a tunnel of corrupted flesh. "Will the Enemy attempt to trap us here as they did at Cauldron Lake?"

"Undoubtedly, StarLaughter. But I do not think they will have much success at -"

Something lunged out of the floor of the walkway and sunk sharp teeth into Sheol's ankle. She shrieked, and stumbled back into StarLaughter and her son.

A bright blue fish clung to her flesh.

Sheol lifted her foot and tried to shake the fish free, but it clung tenaciously.

"StarLaughter!" she shrieked, fury more evident in her voice than fear.

But enc.u.mbered as she was by her heavy son, StarLaughter could do nothing. She shook her head, stumbling out apologies, her eyes fixed on the rivulets of blood running from Sheol's ankle, and eventually Mot was forced to push past her and lean down to Sheol's aid.

But as his hands wrapped themselves about the fish, ten more wriggled out of the suppurating floor of the walkway, and s.n.a.t.c.hed at Mot's hands.

He lurched back, shouting, but several managed to sink their teeth into his hands, and he waved them about, hitting 398.

StarLaughter in the face with both his and the fishes' loathsome flesh.

Something dropped down from the close ceiling above them, and snagged in StarLaughter's hair. She screamed, her arms at first loosening, then tightening about her son just before he dropped from her grasp.

He was too heavy for her to hold in only one arm, so she could do nothing as she felt ... something ... chew amongst her hair, trying to find her scalp.

Raspu grabbed at the thing for her, and flung it far down the walkway. It was an eel, as bright blue as the fish that yet clung to both Sheol and Mot.

He grabbed at the fish clinging to Mot, tore them off - causing Mot to shriek in pain as he did so - and flung them likewise. Then he bent to the remaining fish still chewing grimly on Sheol's ankle.

"There!" he said, as that, too, went slithering down the walkway. As they watched, all the fish and the eel wriggled back into the floor and disappeared. "I don't think that we will be -"

He halted, transfixed with horror. Slithering up the tunnel of rotting flesh towards them was a ma.s.sive fish- creature, its girth almost filling the entire tunnel. Its mouth yawned open, revealing row after row of razored triangular teeth, disappearing into a dark red gullet that eventually shaded into black in its considerable depth.

It roared, and every one of the Demons shrieked and clambered backwards.

Only StarLaughter remained still and silent, staring at the creature as if transfixed with horror.

Something grabbed at her, and she jumped. It was Sheol, who had overcome her own fear to fetch StarLaughter.

No, not StarLaughter, but the child. Sheol tried to jerk it out of StarLaughter's arms, but StarLaughter's grip tightened automatically.

"No!" she cried, suddenly finding her voice.

399.

"Give him to me!" Sheol screamed, tugging with all her might. "Die if you want, fool, but give him to me"

The huge fish-creature was now only fifteen paces away, slithering closer with every lurch of its body.

"Give him to me!"

"No!" StarLaughter cried desperately, and the two females rocked back and forth, arms and hands locked tight about the child, pulling him to and fro.

The child paid no attention, its blank eyes fixed unsighted on a spot in the ceiling above.

"I am his mother" StarLaughter shouted and gave a final, desperate heave.

She was far, far too successful.

Sheol's grip suddenly gave way, and StarLaughter fell backwards, completely losing her footing. She fell straight into the yawning chasm of the fish-creature's mouth.

All StarLaughter saw was Sheol's horrified eyes, and the other Demons rushing up behind her, and then she felt the clamminess of the creature's tongue, and felt the first rows of teeth slice open the skin of her back and b.u.t.tocks.

Agony swept through her body, and StarLaughter screamed once, and then again, and then a third time. The creature's jaws snapped closed about her.

There was blackness, and more pain, and then a period of unknowingness, and when StarLaughter opened her eyes again she saw the Demons standing over her, Sheol cradling the child in her arms.

StarLaughter scrambled to her feet, wiping her hands free of slime on her gown, where new and more putrid stains had added themselves to the rust brown blood that already streaked the once fine, pale-blue gown.

"Give him to me," she cried, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the child from Sheol's arms.

Sheol shrugged. "You tripped and fell," she said, "and I saved the child."

400.

StarLaughter glanced behind her. The fish-creature had disappeared. "Where is it?"

"The Enemy's attack was a delusion only," Raspu said. His naked body was streaked with filth. "Hardly worthy even of the term 'trap'. What remains of their power fades fast, and I doubt we shall be overly troubled by them again."

StarLaughter stared at him. His words were bravado only, and StarLaughter had the horrible feeling the Enemy - or whatever remained of them - was toying with them only.

"Shall we go?" Sheol said, raising an eyebrow at StarLaughter. "Your son's breath awaits."

They descended in silence, StarLaughter now at the back of the line, her arms possessively tight about her son. Her misadventure had made her realise the Demons cared only for her child, but who would he care for, when he spoke and smiled? His mother? Or the Demons?

Far, far behind her, WolfStar slipped and slithered his way down the walkway, his own child's corpse tight under one arm.

Nothing bothered him on his journey down.

The Demons found what they wanted an hour later. The walkway descended into a ma.s.sive vaulted chamber, bare save for a pedestal of golden stone in the centre.

On this pedestal sat a great black bird. It had a thick body, but an overly long and completely bald neck, topped by a tiny head with a long, sharp beak.

It stood unmoving on thick, yellow, scaled legs and claws.

The Demons filed into the chamber, and Sheol waved StarLaughter forward.

"Place the child on the pedestal before the bird."

"But what if he hurts him? What if -"

"Place the child on the pedestal!" Sheol took one threatening step towards StarLaughter, her shoulders hunching as she flung her arms outward, the shadow she cast on the wall behind her making her seem like a great predatory bird herself.

* 401 *

StarLaughter's face tightened, but she did as Sheol commanded, turning to walk slowly towards the golden pedestal. The bird's head turned slightly to watch her.

StarLaughter halted a pace away. The bird was far larger than it had originally seemed, almost twice the size of an eagle, and the beak was wickedly sharp.

"Place the child on the pedestal," Sheol whispered.